WTFOUSBBQ
I’ve had some really, really serious writer’s block lately. Crippling. You think my writing is bad ordinarily? You should see how bad some of the stuff I’ve cranked out in the last couple of weeks is. And hell, even now I’m ending sentences with “is”. What the hell is wrong with me?
I’m feeling better after this weekend, though. After the music article I wrote, I got invited to the OneUps Studios BBQ, and got to take a weekend off to relax, see an amazing concert, and talk to some awesome people. It was a little awkward, because I was a complete stranger to pretty much everybody there except for Mustin (who initially contacted me to invite me, and to whom I talked quite a bit before leaving) and Dale North (who I knew through an incredibly awkward apology I wrote him for something stupid I said in that same article). Still, even coming in as a complete stranger, I met some really great people, and had a lot of fun, even if I was a bit shy. Most of what happened probably wouldn’t be that interesting to anyone but myself, but I did get some (poorly shot) videos of an amazing performance by the OneUps. Keep an eye out for those, they should be up soon.
I’ll be back to writing soon, I promise. And it’ll be something good.
Come On, You Saw It Coming.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve missed putting up an article here recently. I promise I’m working on a long one. But this week has been particularly stressful, what with finals and work and all. I deserve a couple of days of playing Wave Race 64 and sleeping until noon. But I promise I’ll be back with a vengeance soon. And I’ll bring some special surprises. Just stay in tune. Key of C and whatnot.
Yesterday – Mi Apologia.
If you’re wondering why an article wasn’t posted yesterday, your guess is as good as mine. An article was written yesterday, and certainly I hit the publish button, but for some reason yesterday there was no new article up. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but there’s an article I wrote yesterday that seems to have just vanished in the haze. But don’t fret! (May god help you if I see you fret.) There will be two articles today. And no, smartass, this will not be one of them.
I Promise I Have Yet To Break My Promise.
Hey guys, technical difficulties have left me unable to post the article I wrote yesterday. For the record I was UNAWARE that the post didn’t actually post until today. So, later on today I will see to it that that post gets put up as well as today’s. I promise. On top of my other promise. This forms a terrifying amalgam promise, a mutant which has crawled from industrial waste to infect you with its terrible diseased claws. You’re welcome.
On Ogre Battle, and By Way of That, Funny Game Titles
I’m still working on an article that has turned out to be really, really long. As a result I wanted to write something small in the meantime to hold you guys over until I finish this other post. And yes, that is a conveniently-worded way of saying I’m lazy.
The Ogre Battle series is one of the less famous strategy RPGs, or at least it has become less famous recently, but it is storied among people of my generation as one of the best ever. It was a little different than the grid-based strategy RPGs today, in that you manage your empire kind of indirectly. Instead of sending out 3 or 4 units to attack, you send out several armies to meet other armies that are coming to attack your cities. When these units meet, you just watch them fight, and pray that the combination of units you chose will be good enough to win. As such, it was much more purely strategy than today’s strategy RPGs.
As a lifelong Queen fan, however, Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen and its sequel, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, hold a bigger significance. Namely, the developer, Yasumi Matsuno, is obsessed with them. If you aren’t a Queen fan (and seriously, please get hit by a bus and die if you aren’t), Ogre Battle, March of the Black Queen, and Let Us Cling Together are all the titles of Queen songs. Matsuno, who is more famous than you think, having been the designer of, among other things, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Vagrant Story, absolutely loves Queen, and sneaks references to them in a lot of his games. For example, there’s a chapter in FF Tactics called Somebody to Love, and the sword you start with in Vagrant Story is called Fandango (a reference to Bohemian Rhapsody’s operatic section). Even in FFXII the summon Hashmal (no, I will NOT fucking call summons Eidolons) uses an attack called Rock You, a reference to We Will Rock You (obviously). Unfortunately, in the translated version of the game, the attack is called Roxxor, because WE ARE UP ON INTERNETES SLANG! FOR THE EPIC WINNER! LOLCATS FAILBAN!
There isn’t really much of a point to this post. I just mostly wanted to demonstrate how lucky we are the Matsuno was obsessed with a band that lent itself to cool titles, because Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen is just two Queen songs with a colon in between. It could have been much worse, as these examples demonstrate:
- Steely Dan: Kid Charlemagne: Do It Again - The story of a young Charlemagne as he attempts to expand the Frankish empire across Europe. A platformer, obviously.
- Styx: Mr Roboto: The Grand Illusion - A psychological survival horror game about an imaginary robot that follows the main character around trying to kill him. Also the main character is Dennis DeYoung.
- Journey: Don’t Stop Believin’: Faithfully A Christian game by the makers of Left Behind. Try to keep your faith alive while faced with such Biblical evils as homosexuality, pornography, and environmentalism. First-Person Shooter.
- The Eagles: Take It Easy: Life in the Fast Lane - This one borderlines on nonsensical. Am I taking it easy, or living life in the fast lane? Make up your goddammed mind, Don Henley. Either a relaxing sim game or an intense racer.
- Kiss: Love Gun: Lick It Up - This one is just vile. No comment.
…
Wii game.
Well, school is back in session for me, and, unlike every other writer, that actually indicates that there will be more content on here rather than less. That’s still not saying much. But with 2 hours between my classes I should have plenty of time to come in and write shit for you guys. But that said, don’t expect anything, because if you are a frequent reader (which I suppose means if you’re a Russian spammer), you should know I never write anything when I promise I’m going to. Anyway. I’m gonna write something now. Confusing? Why yes.
What follows is a transcript of the remarks and thoughts of the first Americans to play Super Mario Bros., George Brenner and Joseph Redding, in late 1985. Their comments helped justify Nintendo’s decision to bring the NES to America the next year.
Takashi Nozawa, Nintendo VP of Marketing: We are pleased that you have decided to test our product to see if it is correct for the American market. We understand that the market for video game products has crashed in the United States, but we would like to assure you that our Family Computer is perfect for the American consumer.
George Brenner, Investment Manager, Sears: Well, keep in mind we were the ones who chose to sell the Atari 2600 through our department stores. I don’t think anything could top the demonstration they gave us. Between Star Ship and Race, I felt like I was living in a futuristic wonderworld. I couldn’t sleep for 15 whole days after I played it.
Joseph Redding, Investment Manager, Sears: I literally shit my pants when I saw Math. Literally. I was both amazed at the incredible technology in front of me and terrified to think that it could lead to me spending my golden years being hunted down in old age by a squad of impossibly intelligent SuperBabies raised by their Atari 2600 overlords to enslave mankind.
Takashi: Haha, yes, well, hopefully you will not have the same concerns with our products. *puts copy of Donkey Kong Jr. Math in garbage can* Perhaps you would like to try our flagship game, Super Mario Brothers?
George: Sure. What do you play as? Tanks, spaceships, or dots?
Takashi: Actually you play as a little man named Mario.
Joseph: That would be dots, then.
Takashi: Actually, no. He is a plumber with a mustache from Brooklyn.
George: Oh, I know. I saw the instruction manual. I meant what do you play as in the game.
Takashi: As did I.
George: HA! You’re good people, mister. But you and I know I’m not gonna be able to tell a person AND a mustache AND a hat apart on a character in a home video game.
George: Sweet fucking Jesus.
Joseph: Oh my god.
George: Look at all of those colors. There are… there are like 10 colors on the screen right now.
Joseph: That’s… that’s not possible. THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE. HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT?
George: Joseph, CALM THE FUCK DOWN. There’s no way everything can be this impressive. Holy… look at how fluid that movement is. I can’t… how are you doing this?
Takashi: I take it that you are impressed.
Joseph: Takashi, I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to be honest. Are you a witch?
Takashi: Hahaha, of course I am not. The solution is more simple that that. We at Nintendo have worked very hard on the hardware architecture of our Family Computer, or Famicom, as we call it. The efficient design allows the system to have a considerable amount of power while still being easy to program for, which allows us to create a large library of games both through our own research and development teams and through our third party designers.
George: Third party desig- WHOA JUMPING INTO THAT FUCKING BOX JUST MADE IT POP OUT A COIN OR SOMETHING. Third party designers? Atari had problems with them. It’s not fair that someone can just come along and make a piece of software for your hardware. They should make their own hardware if they want to release software.
Takashi: Well, that is where we hope to succeed where Atari failed. We have licensed out the rights to our hardware technology in order to be able to profit from third party software while still enjoying the expanded software library that results from having several developers.
Joseph: That’s retarded. It only takes a week, or two at the most, for a guy to design a game, you should just hire their developers and have them crank a few out every month. Then you get 100% profits.
George: What are these green things?
Takashi: Ah, those are pipes. Mario can travel down them. Try jumping on top of that one, then press down.
George: Ok… I guess I can…
George: SHITTING FUCKS.
Joseph: NGGHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA *jumps out window*
George: JESUS CHRIST JOSEPH! OH GOD WE’RE ON THE 85TH FLOOR!
Takashi: I’ll call the emergency services! We’ve got to get down there to help him!
George: Ok, sure, but right now my first priority is making sure we finish this deal.
Takashi: But.. your friend! If we hurry we might be able to help him!
George: If I leave this room for even a second someone else could just waltz right the fuck in here and buy this. No way am I going to take that chance.
Takashi: Fine, fine, what can you offer us?
George: If you allow us to sell this game in our stores I will give you the information for the company bank account. You can take out whatever money you want whenever you want.
Takashi: Are.. are you sure? It seems like you would at least need to contact your home office to authorize a deal of that magnitude.
George: To hell with the home office. I WILL NOT MISS OUT ON THIS OPPORTUNITY.
Takashi: Fine, fine, we accept, now we have to go help your friend!
George: You have to promise me, PROMISE ME, that NO ONE ELSE will sell this product.
Takashi: Mr. Brenner, I must insist we help your friend!
George: PROMISE ME!
Takashi: We will attend to it when we get back! We must go now! *runs out door*
The tape ends here. However, the rest of that day is forever known to history. Joseph Redding died after plummeting 85 stories to his death,having been unable to accept the tremendous increase of technology between the Atari 2600 and the NES. Takashi Nozawa got an enormous bonus for the tremendous amount of income the Sears deal resulted in for Nintendo. He bought his own series of islands and retired at 26. The NES went on to become one of the most successful and beloved video game systems of all time. And George Brenner? Although successful for brokering the deal with Nintendo, Brenner unfortunately became more well-known on December 12th, 1985. On that frosty December morn, 87 men, women, and children were killed when Brenner lost his mind in a K-Mart Department store upon seeing that, despite the contract he thought he signed, the NES was available for sale at stores other than Sears.
Surprise.
For a list of reasons faaaaaar to long to explain, it may be a while (longer than it already has been) before I can post again. I’m not shutting down or anything, just going on another one of my seasonal hiatuses. I’m sure longtime readers will be used to this by now. Updates will resume soon, including a possible fundraiser of some kind. For Child’s Play, not myself. Although I could probably use one too.
Sorry Again.
Yet again, I’m going on a brief hiatus. I have no internets, and until I get to go to the internet store and buy another bucket of internets I won’t be able to update. Sorry. It’s not that big of a deal, though, it’s not like my usual topics are going to somehow have become more out-of-date than they already are. Duck Hunt will still be decades old when I come back, it’s been 24 years, what’s another couple of months?
An Incredibly Late E3 ’09 Recap.
It would appear that E3 is back. It’s possible that it has been for a while, because I specifically stopped caring about E3 after they gutted it. I would eventually get all of the news anyway, so why bother tracking a series of boring press conferences if they don’t have any titties or monster trucks? Thankfully, this is no longer the case, and E3 is fun again. As such, here’s a recap of Day 1 that you’ve already read on other sites. I added dick jokes to make sure it’s worth reading again.
- Microsoft’s Press Conference
- MS started with a fucking bang. They really made an impression on just about everybody. This is exactly what a promotional press conference should be. Laden with plenty of revelations, plenty of actual gameplay videos, and most importantly, plenty of the kind of bullshit that is absolutely necessary for announcements like this.
- The biggest news is pretty much “Project Natal”, also known as “Project EyeToy”. Yet again, another developer misses the point about the Wii, not realizing that it’s having the ability to control something by moving your hand and not always jumping around like a spastic asshat that makes it palatable to everybody. It always seems as though other hardware designers, and sometimes even Wii software designers, see the commercials for the Wii with kids jumping around and assume that that’s the appeal of the system. This EyeToy camera for the 360 basically allows you to do the same thing as the Wii only also with your feet. It also allows for skateboard recognition and real-time dress trying-on. You know, for hardcore gamers, because only the dumb ol’ Wii targets anyone else.
- Crackdown 2 was announced. There’s not really a lot to say because not much was revealed, but I’m very, very excited about it. As I said before, I really enjoyed the first game, for no discernible reason, and I think this new one could be really good if they learn from their mistakes the first time around (I.E. more replay value, better gunplay, more to do outside of fighting racial gangs).
- Halo: ODST was shown, and despite my continued disdain for the Halo series as a whole, this actually looks really good. To be honest, it looks more like Metroid Prime than a Halo game, and the idea of a Metroid game set in the Halo universe could be delicious if executed properly. The environments in Halo games are always very bland, and that’s certainly not a problem with the Metroid series, but this game is to be set on Earth, and as far as Halo environs go, the Earth maps are definitely the most well-designed and interesting, so hopefully it will work out. Also, you don’t play as a hero designed by an 8-year-old (I.E. simplistic, invincible, and utterly devoid of anything even closely resembling personality; in a word, Master Chief), so the game just might stand a chance at being, dare I say it, interesting.
- Forza 3 is absolutely beautiful, and I don’t even like racing sims.
- Peter Molyneux’s new little tech demo is cute at first. After that, terrifying. Once the realization sets in that it’s essentially a tool to allow you to interact with a prepubescent boy in the privacy of your own home without the interference of parents, teachers, or law enforcement, I feel as though, were I to walk into a store and purchase it, I would exit the store only to find Chris Hansen and a couple of armed police officers offering me a seat. Fortunately, the game can be bought in the privacy of one’s own home, so… yeah. I guess it’ll be neat if I ever want to know what to say to little boys to make them like me. Also, this “revolutionary” stuff that Peter Molyneux tries to append to everything he does applies even less here, because this game was already made (in a much more entertaining fashion, for that matter) 10 years ago. It was called Seaman, and it was narrated by Leonard Nimoy. Once again, Japan wins.
- Metal Gear Solid was revealed to be jumping to the Xbox, which leaves Sony with approximately 0 remaining franchises anybody cares about. LittleBigPlanet was totally awesome, but I don’t think the mainstream audience was smart enough to realize that, and Uncharted looks pretty cool, but far too generic in concept to catch anyone who doesn’t already own a PS3′s eye. And Killzone? The only people who bought Killzone were the people who felt they had to buy Killzone, the people who, desperate for something, anything to justify paying so much money for a machine that gets even multiplatform games a year late. Killzone was automatically good, regardless of the product itself. Sony had just told them for so long that it was good. It was required to be true. If you exist outside of that mindset, Killzone was just another generic moderately-well-designed space marine FPS, just like the first game, with nothing new to offer except a “purposely” messed up aiming system. Ok, that was a pretty bad tangent. Anyway, MGS:Rising looks pretty sweet. Kojima is my hero.
- Holy shitting fucks. I don’t even remember hearing about this, but I just looked, and Perfect fucking Dark is being released on XBLA. That’s amazing. It’s not quite the fully updated remake of Goldeneye that almost was, but a slightly updated rerelease of Perfect Dark is still pretty extraordinary.
- Finally, Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm are going to be accessable on XBL. Frankly, I don’t give a shit. I’ve got like 10 devices in my house right now that can access all 3 of those things (and several more), most of which are portable and don’t require me to type either with a clunky chatpad or an even clunkier controller-based interface.
-Sony
- Sony introduced a new PSP, and… hmm. It’s cool in theory, and I think I probably play more downloaded games than I do UMDs, mostly because Jumping Flash and Wild ARMs are available, but I like having the ability to use a UMD when neccesary (I.E. Mega Man: Powered Up), and I certainly don’t want to pay 80 fucking dollars extra for a gimped PSP. Sony claims that all UMD-based games after the new system’s release and that “a majority” of the games released previously would be available for download, but honestly, I just don’t believe anything they say anymore. It’s like they’re just incapable of not lying about things, and that makes me suspect this is just another mistruth.
- Rockstar announced a PS3 exclusive called Agent. I can’t find much information on it, but it’s apparently set in the late 1970s, and that’s cool. I generally trust Rockstar, even though GTAIV wasn’t all that great. I’d kind of like to see what they would do with a non-open world game.
- The Last Guardian looks amazing. “Art” game designers should take a page from Team Ico on how to make a game that is beautiful, unique, innovative, and immersive without having to be pretensious or boring. They manage to pull off what every shit designer thinks they’re doing, creating an environment that is a large part of gameplay while still actually having gameplay, with an often metaphorical plot that speaks about human nature, and again I must state, without being pretensious. It’s a difficult line to tread, but Team Ico has pulled it off every time.
- ModNation Racers looks pretty cute. I like the concept. I don’t have much else to say.
- Gran Turismo is looking pretty sweet. I just pray to god they don’t pull the microtransaction bullshit they discussed at one time.
- Perhaps most importantly, Sony promised 50 new PSOne Classics, which will mean the end of my bank account, and likely my marriage, after I buy Final Fantasy VII, MGS, and like 20 other games. It’ll be worth it though.
- Nintendo
- New Super Mario Bros. looks great. I played the shit out of the first one, and this looks like Super Mario World to the first game’s Super Mario Bros. 3. This is a delicious prospect.
- The new Metroid might be really good, or really insulting to the rest of the series, depending on how Team Ninja handles it. Keep in mind, Tomonobu Itagaki, and honestly, I’m not sure if that makes a case for it being good or bad. In any case, I hope it’s nothing like Ninja Gaiden or especially Dead or Alive. I don’t want to see Samus’s jiggling tits, and I don’t want to rack up a 500-hit combo. I want to play a goddammed Metroid game. Change can be implemented in the Metroid games very well while still keeping the spirit of the series; just look at Metroid Prime. That game was amazing, and it was distinctly a Metroid game, goddammit. Don’t disappoint me, Team Ninja.
- Super Mario Galaxy was the first game to give me the same sense of childlike wonderment I got the first time I played Mario 64, so I hope I get the same effect from the sequel. It’s got Yoshi in it!
- Golden Sun is one of the unsung heroes of the last generation of handhelds, so I hope the new one is successful. I’m already pretty sure it’ll be fun.
- Ubisoft
- Ubisoft had an amazing showing. Hahaha, just kidding. There was nothing even remotely worth reviewing. I can’t even figure out how they got a conference.
That hits basically everything I can think of. If I think of more I’ll add more. It’s too fucking late and I’m not funny anymore. Now that I have this out of the way I’m gonna review the Earthbound strategy guide. Any recommendations on a cbz viewer that takes screenshots? Otherwise I’m either gonna be spending time painstakingly editing menu stuff out, or, more likely, taking sloppy camera phone pictures of the actual pages.
